Be the Expert in the Room

A few years ago- just after starting to recover from a long term eating disorder, I launched a blog, “allthingsconsidered“, following my personal journey with ED recovery. Some months later, I launched another blog, “opinionated(about)ED“, intending to invite others to write about their experiences in an attempt to help evolve treatment modalities, while challenging harmful and outdated ED beliefs that keep people stuck in a really unwell state.

But, not being superwoman, and especially without ED behaviours and that default energy deficit to rely on, I needed to step back from both blogs to focus on my own recovery.

Let’s face it: Individual blogs aren’t enough to ensure that the voices of those who have recovered from ED are heard and admitted as valid evidence that will have a measurable impact on the way that others with ED are diagnosed, treated, and supported. And, for some people, me included, running a blog can all too easily be a way of avoiding the work needed to maintain a robust and flourishing remission. Sometimes we need to step back and not be the “saviour”, even if our ED genes make that a default position to take.

For that reason, this website is intended as a resource to capture and archive individual stories within the community of people practising remission from ED. We CAN BE what Gwyneth Olwyn describes as “the experts in the room“ when it comes to our own eating disorders. I hope that reading our remission stories, seeing our photos, watching our videos will help others in turn to pursue a practise of remission.

We don’t agree on everything, but we do on this one thing: ED treatment must improve .

With a 20% mortality rate, ED is beyond deadly. And for those that survive it, living with it can be a lifetime of hell. Current treatment protocols regularly lag far behind peer-reviewed research, and often fail to acknowledge the lived experience of those in recovery, of of those who care for them.

This site offers insights from people living the realties of ED/recovery, and in particular, raises the voices of individuals who are successfully practising remission, and who have done so by moving outside the lines of standard treatments and pushing for a level of recovery beyond simple weight restoration.

An active recovery effort is an initiation into the practice. You have to learn all the basics of how you will live your life in remission: eating real amounts of food that support your energy needs; resting to repair damage; and applying responses to anxiety that don’t fall back on restriction as the go-to modulator.